Quaid-e-Azam University Road, Diplomatic Enclave 2, G-4Islamabad, Pakistan P.O.Box # 1263
Tel: +92 51-2829502-6 ext. 2421/2428 Fax # +92-51-227-7683

UNHCR begins relocating Afghans from isolated refugee camp

March 09, 2004

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, 9 March (UNHCR) - The UN Refugee Agency began relocating refugees from a remote camp near the Khyber Pass on Tuesday under a plan to help all 10,000 residents of the Shalman Camp return to Afghanistan or move to another refugee camp before the end of the month.

The convoy carrying 402 refugees snaked its way through the mountains of the Khyber Agency and on to Kotkai Camp, in a more hospitable region further north, two days after the first refugees who asked to return to Afghanistan were registered and left.

Shalman was chosen for the first step in a programme to consolidate camps established to shelter Afghans fleeing the war that followed the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States because of its shrinking population and a waterless location where it was difficult and expensive to provide assistance. "The security situation in my area of Afghanistan is normal," said Abdul Razak, a 42-year-old father of four who was on the buses heading to Kotkai. "But poverty and some local disputes at home made me decide to relocate to Kotkai."

The Convoy leaving Shalman refugee camp © UNHCR/J.Redden

The UNHCR convoy, the first of what will be daily movements to Kotkai, consisted of six buses and 13 trucks to carry the belongings of the 56 families, including the poles to help construct new mud houses. The escort included two ambulances. UNHCR had prepared facilities for the arriving refugees at Kotkai, which has extra space because of departures there over the two years the refugee agency has been operating its voluntary repatriation programme to assist Afghans back to their homeland. Initially those transferred from Shalman will stay in tents while preparing new houses. About 300,000 refugees flooded out of Afghanistan in late 2001 to escape the fighting, but the total in the "new" camps like Shalman and Kotkai built to shelter them has shrunk to about 200,000. There are 15 "new" camps, including Shalman, while some 200 others from earlier waves of refugees dot Pakistan. About half the refugees in Shalman said during a January survey that they would rather return to Afghanistan than relocate to another camp inside Pakistan. Unlike the relocation to Kotkai, the refugees going home organize their own transport back to Afghanistan, using the financial assistance provided by UNHCR for returnees. UNHCR gives each returning refugee a travel grant that varies from $3 to $30, depending on the distance to the home, plus $8 instead of food and non-food items like buckets that were provided in previous years of the repatriation programme.

"UNHCR gave us the option to either repatriate or relocate," said Jan Mohammed. "I prefer to repatriate. If I am dead or alive, hungry or thirsty, I want to be in my country. I came here two and a half years ago and I don't want to be a refugee any longer." The camps that were set up in late 2001 when Pakistan lifted restrictions and allowed new refugees to enter were often in difficult locations, intended to be only temporary.

Another-- A boy carrying belongings for relocation © UNHCR/J.Redden

Shalman was in one of the most hostile environments, forcing UNHCR to deliver several tanker trucks of water per day because the valley is completely dry. It will abandoned after the last residents are moved, about 23 March.

UNHCR plans to continue the programme of camp consolidation during the next two years. Two camps in the Chaman area of Balochistan Province are likely to be the next closed, with a start as soon as there is agreement on the alternative refugee camp inside Pakistan that will be offered to residents not wishing to repatriate.

At the same time, UNHCR is assisting all Afghans in Pakistan who want to go home. More than 1.9 million Afghans have received return assistance in the past two years and UNHCR has forecast about 400,000 will ask to go home this year. The voluntary repatriation programme runs until the end of 2005.